Perjurous DCMA Notices

A bit of backstory: Lately we've been getting abuse notices via our datacenter and via email about our clients from s "CEG TEK International", we get about 5 of these a day now... as such we've started trying to confirm actual abuse is occurring. That said here's what we've found:

Why this matters:
At BlueVM Communications, we receive DMCA notices from time to time. Normally, we have no problem with these and we do our due diligence to keep our servers clean. However, one company has been sending repeated notices to us, mostly false and malicious, and today I've officially confirmed their lying about evidence to blackmail their targets.

Their normal notice starts off with a disclaimer that goes something like this: “CEG TEK International (“We”) represent [some porn company]. [some porn company] owns all right, title and interest in and to the works listed below. (Some individuals may find certain words in titles of works to be offensive. We apologize in advance if this is the case.)”

All is fine and dandy, some dude was pirating some porn, that's against our TOS, open and closed book... But here's the thing. The DMCA doesn't specify “settlement” as a requirement for DMCA notices so obviously we aren't going to force our client to pay for something that isn't backed up by the law... ignoring that we forward the clients the notices and that's all...

Now, here's the fishy part. For one notice they gave us, they gave a port of 41150 and a timestamp of 2013-01-23 12:19:36 EST. The only problem with this is that the client had us establish a firewall on his vps at 11:52 EST which included blocking that specific port and according to the logs and the firewall that port is and has been blocked.

What's not right you ask? Approximately 27 minutes PRIOR to the timestamp in the message (not to be confused with the timestamp of the email's arrival, which was the next day), one of our System Administrators made it impossible for such infringement and we have proof that such infringement did not occur. They couldn't communicate on that IP/Port at that timestamp, because it was blocked it 27 minutes prior and we have data indicating the client did not install a torrenting application on his vps.

So here we have a company, properly known as CEG TEK International, also known to some as http://copyrightsettlements.com, sending out false, malicious, and perjurous DMCA notices.

So, as of now, we're adopting a policy of requiring their company send any infringement notices to us via USPS Certified Mail or equivalent service provided by a private company... We'd like to encourage all providers to do the same.

Behind you 100% on this. The first thing I do when I get a report is assume that my client is innocent. I'm tired of abusive DMCA notices and I'll turn it into a pissing match with the sender without hesitation. Can't wait to own my IP space ;)

Jurisdiction as such, is California. If you are in California and receive such and they continue to be a pain the legal arse, then file a suit at local level against them and force them into magistrate or equivalent.

@BlueVM Yeah we get a lot of crap to but it bluntly as well, We got some copyright company, they claim

We hereby state that the information in this Notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that our client Serie A are the owner, or authorised to act on behalf of the owner, of the copyright or of an exclusive right under the copyright that is allegedly infringed.

But when there sending the DMCA to the wrong person you can sue them right? As we have had loads of DMCAs that don't even belong to our ranges.

I'd also track down who bonds/insures this lawyer and his front company and start a dialogue with them prior to any litigation. Since they are a corporation, they will have to incur the cost of hiring outside counsel.

You can inquire about the attorney discipline process here:

1-800-843-9053 — Attorney Complaint Hotline

Protecting California's consumers is one of the primary missions of The State Bar of California. The mission is principally carried out through the bar's Attorney Discipline System, which takes complaints against attorneys from citizens and other sources, investigates those complaints and prosecutes attorneys against whom allegations of unethical conduct appear to be justified.

Today magistrate judge Maria-Elena James has put (hopefully) the last nail in the coffin of monstrous p2p infringement lawsuits. She dismissed both of Ira Siegel’s cases in her docket, 13:11-cv-02766 Patrick Collins, Inc. v. Does 1-2590 and 3:11-cv-02770 New Sensations, Inc v. Does 1-1474.

It all started on December 1st, when Judge James ordered Ira Siegel to answer some uncomfortable questions about the case status, because he did not name a single defendant in violation of the 120-day rule. Almost immediately after that she issued another order, this time questioning the Court’s jurisdiction over the majority of putative defendants. Remembering how Ira Siegel disregarded judge Zimmerman’s order to disclose how much money he extorted from Does, I did not have any illusion that Mr. Siegel would comply this time, so it was no surprise when instead of
Conducting a search to obtain geographic information about the IP Addresses listed in its Complaint and thereafter provide the Court with the location for each IP Address¹;
Voluntarily dismiss without prejudice out-of-jurisdiction defendants (or to show good cause as to why it has a good faith belief that jurisdiction exists and venue is proper as to each individual Doe Defendant).

Ira Siegel had audacity to ask the Court
To allow the ISPs to comply with the subpoenas;
To allow Plaintiff and those potential Doe defendants who desire to settle their claims to reach settlements;
To postpone any requirements that Plaintiff name and/or dismiss any potential Doe defendants until February 20, 2012.

Judge James was rightfully angry. She did not swallow Ira’s insult to her intelligence and dismissed both cases outright:

Technically they're not even DMCA notices because they're not even citing the DMCA law (17 USC § 512, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512) in their communications, or asking that material be removed, so you as a host are under no obligation to take any action until they either file a proper DMCA notice with you requesting removal of the material, or you receive a court order requiring the removal of any infringing material.

They're not even asking that the material be removed from the website--they're asking that your client cease "unauthorized copying and/or distribution" (i.e. stop downloading copyright material) and demanding that your client pay them a "settlement fee" to avoid a lawsuit.

I'm really tired of the completely bogus DMCA notices that are being sent by the SEO people at companies in the wake of last year's Google Penguin/Panda--i.e. people misusing DMCA notices to try to have links to their websites removed (linking to legal material is not even a copyright violation according to several US court rulings . Example: a DMCA notice sent trying to remove a link in a directory or blog article that links to the home page of a retailer or hotel)

..and I'm also sick of the equally bogus DMCA notices that are sent by companies who are trying to use DMCA takedown notices to stifle valid public criticism of their business practices (the DMCA that LEB received from Limestone Networks last year is a perfect example of this).

Lawsuit happy lawyers? How else is a charlatan like Ira Siegel going to get paid? It is either waa-waa poor more libel/slander bubblegum or extorting people for bogus downloads of Hollyweird and porno-alley productions. I'd like to know what sort of filth he represents.

There are 1.1 million+ lawyers in the United States. Basically 1 lawyer for every 130+ people employed in the United States. So vast majority of these circus rejects need an ambulance to chase. They can't make honest money doing something reputable and doing so professionally; perfecting their craft to expert level.

That's why lawyers like doctors are commonly according to their membership and licensing just "practicing" their respective trade. Does a mason practice laying bricks? No they are an apprentice, a licensed trades person and eventually a master. Compare that the jerk off lawyers who continue to "practice". Chronic social masturbators most lawyers are.

In a recent Gallup pool (2011) lawyers came in at 9th in a survey of the most dishonest professions.

They trailed, 1. Members of Congress (who get legislation submitted and wrote by Lobbyists and lawyers affiliated with Lobbyists routinely. 2. Lobbyists (the scum themselves that corrupt Members of Congress with lawyers aiding and abetting). 3. Car Salespeople. 4. Telemarketers. 5. Advertising Practitioners. 6. Stockbrokers (an industry fueled by legal wranglings and legal heaps of confusion). 7. Business Executives (how many of these fat cats are oil wrestling with lawyers in their posh offices? tons). 8. Labor Union Leaders (more corrupt bums fueled by lawyers). 9. LAWYERS. 10. Real Estate Agents (go see how many legal forms they make you deal with and voodoo processes).

Funny to me that the top 10 most dishonest professions seem to be highly centered around lawyers more than just about anything else. Scumbags.

We get tons of automated DMCA for P2P and Websites; i already tried to tell them that what the customer does is not illegal and that DMCA in Europe is worthless at all and that they should stop sending them - Zero reaction, still 30+ mails daily.

Now their mailserver and /24 is listed on Spamhaus for not stopping to annoy us :)

In general, unless it is for our US location, we forward DMCA (rare) or plainly ignore it.

Once you get to a certain size you get a lot of useless and fake abuse (DMCA; Takedown requests for entirely legal content; Japanese takedown requests for eBooks and Anime that have no copyright in the EU; Abuse for subtitle sites; Abuse for sites which use screenshots from Movies; Abuse for a SUSE Linux (OPENSOURCE!) image shared over P2P and so on....) - I honestly don't want to be an US provider that has to react to all this (even fake) crap.

@pubcrawler said: In a recent Gallup pool (2011) lawyers came in at 9th in a survey of the most dishonest professions.

You do know the old adage, right?

"How can you tell a lawyer's lying? His mouth's moving."

@William said: I honestly don't want to be an US provider that has to react to all this (even fake) crap.

From my observation, we get a complaint for about 1-2% of our customers in any given calendar month. The customer who these DMCA notices are targeted for received 5 in the last 3 days, and I really think our upstream provider is getting pissed off, because he saw evidence that I instituted such a block and is still receiving the complaints.